children

Christmas Joy?

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Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, yet my heart is torn by so much that is wrong in our world that it can be hard to find joy. 

I was privileged to have visited Mozambique some years ago.  Having experienced a tiny glimpse of life there, I now regularly send money to help some of the poorest who live there.   This picture shows one lady with all that she has to live on for the next month:

Is she any less valuable human being than me, or you?  Does she matter less because she happens to have been born in a poor country?  Or because she’s black?  Isn’t that what we think deep down if we deny help to people in this situation?

It’s not just our government cutting back that matters.  What about each of us as individuals?  There is a line in a song “my Chinese take away would pay for someone’s drugs”  (medicines) – that is so true.   I know many people, quite a few now retired or close to retiring – university professors, doctors, professional engineers, teachers, civil servants – who have amassed significant amounts of money, own big houses, take expensive holidays.  Healthy pension funds and investments have secured a comfortable retirement – as our culture tells us that that is what we have to do.  

And yet this old lady has no such ‘essentials’.   She lives day to day in accommodation that we would not give space to in our garden, and is desperately grateful for a sack of rice and some cooking oil:

We in the ‘developed’ world are not deliberately evil, but we are ignorant.  We are ignorant of the life of the majority of the world.  We have money but are fearful of losing it.  We are taught to save for our rainy day, but we do that when so many others are already being flooded out by a deluge. 

It would be hypocritical of me to say we should sell all we have and give to the poor – although since Jesus said it, it is probably right.  But we can start to move in that direction.  It does not cause any discomfort if the total of our investments drop by (say) 10% when we still don’t think twice before having our Chinese takeaway – and yet I have found that joy comes from seeing the images of those who I have been able to help.  This person has something to eat because I chose to send some money.  That person can now put a tin sheet over the hole in the roof of their house because I chose to send some money.  When I  give, I feel no pain, only gain.  And yet it is still not ‘easy’ – still the pressures of sixty years of western capitalist propaganda take effort to resist.  It takes an act of will sometimes to give, but it is worth it.

Try it this Christmas?

May God bless us all.

Time to ditch Jack Sparrow’s moral compass?

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I read a headline this morning that the UK government is paying strip clubs and lap dancing bars thousands of pounds to employ young people.  http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1376579.ece What sort of moral compass are they travelling by.  It is Jack Sparrow’s compass: it points at whatever you feel like.

Many of the young people I meet today have already succumbed to the temptations of smoking (tobacco and weed), drinking (to excess), internet pornography and instant gratification sex.  Many have anger management problems, are bored easily, struggle to see any purpose in life, and find it hard to get and keep jobs.  And I live in ‘middle England’, I can’t imagine what it is like in the most deprived areas.

Who can blame them?

We have structured our society so that we take our children away from their parents and put them in schools where the only adult interaction is focused on learning facts that will help them pass exams.  We have structured our economy such that parents have to work long hours, often at weekends, so our less affluent families have little time for child parent interaction.  We have so regulated schools with ‘child protection’ that the few adults who do interact with children are not allowed even to touch them, and who live in fear of accusation of child molesting. We have done our best to mock and marginalise religious institutions who try to suggest that some form of restraint might be beneficial.

We have put our children in an institutional ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario, and added the instant gratification of TV, internet, and readily available drugs (legal and illegal).

Surely it is time for a serious rethink.

Instead of sticking plaster politics and abdicating any vision of the future to ‘market forces’, let’s try to define what we want society to be like, and then see what needs to be done to get there.

Please share your ideas of what an ideal society would look like.

What do we do with our money?

/ Minimalist Christian / 4 Comments

Through no virtue of my own, I was born with skills that have allowed me to find a good job, and to manage my money. Before I was a Christian I thought that this was just good luck, and that I didn’t have to thank anyone for this. I could do with my money what I pleased (of course, in consultation with my wife!).

We have always had a joint bank account, but when she became a Christian many years before me, she suggested that we each have an additional private account which we can use completely as we please. I was happy with this, as I could then ‘treat’ myself without feeling guilty, and also it seemed to make the act of giving each other presents a bit more meaningful, and it allowed her to give money to charity without having to ask my permission.

I used to think myself reasonably charitable. I’d give to people in the street, and I gave a little to Macmillan nurses after my father died of cancer. I was probably like most of the rest of the country, quite happily giving less than 1% of my income away. And following worldly advice I set some financial targets for my life – I decided to have saved £100,000 by retirement age. (I have to admit I struggled to know what I was going to do with it, but it is something that you have to do, isn’t it).

On the road to becoming a Christian I read ‘challenging lifestyles’ by Nicky Gumbell. I decided that it was OK to give more away. I didn’t have to keep it all for myself for the future, and so I made a standing order from my bank to a Charity Card account, of a relatively small proportion of my income. Perhaps the surprising rate at which the amount I had in the account built up showed how little I was really giving away. But having that account meant that I had to give it away – and I found that really quite rewarding. “Now, who can I give this to” is quite a nice feeling. And I didn’t feel any poorer!

But when I first visited Mozambique I learned so much more!  It was so liberating to see how much closer people come to God when they have no money.  And if you put a Mozambican and an Englishman next to each other and dressed them the same, how would you know who was the richer?

But I also saw again the massive amount of good work that is not happening because of lack of money.  I wept when Pastor Caetano described how he had started the orphanage at the House of the Sparrow with all he had – how they don’t know each day where food is coming from, but God always provides.  Forty-seven children, being cared for and loved by a Christian pastor with nothing but what God provides.  I learned that God really cares what we do with our money.

If someone asks us to give to charity the first thought is, “Can we afford it?”  Of course we can – we still have so much more than the children in Mozambique.  Can we afford not to?  No, not unless we want to harden our hearts.

Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal.  Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal. For your heart will always be where your riches are. (Matthew 6:19-21)

My experience is that my giving to charity has increased twenty-fold or more since choosing to follow Christ, and my financial savings goals have disappeared.  Where is the logic in saving for something that might be needed in the future when you can see something that is needed today?

If God is all powerful, why doesn’t he stop all the fighting?

/ Minimalist Christian / 2 Comments

I wrote this when my delightful daughters were much younger; I hope that if they read this now it will make them smile ……

Parents can learn a lot from their children.

My children sometimes fight.  Sometimes one or other of them may exaggerate their wounds and try to get me to arbitrate as to who was to blame.  I hate to see them fighting and so have found myself drawn into trying to resolve and judge the issue.  However, I try not to blame one or the other because I love them both and recognize that it takes two to make an argument. However, it often ends up with both of them ‘hating’ me.  If I do arbitrate then the one who ‘wins’ soon forgets, but the loser then spirals into silent or vociferous anger and feeling of being unfairly treated.  As an arbitrator I cannot win!  Even as a peacekeeper I seldom win.  It is perhaps best to leave them to have their fight, and to be there to comfort whoever needs comforting.

Since we have free will, how can God intervene when he sees us fighting and causing suffering?  We would behave in just the same way as my children.  It would not be ‘fair’ if we were judged ‘against’, and if we were judged ‘for’ then we would simply accept the decision as our right, and go about our business.  He has given us the dignity of choice, but having done that he has necessarily limited the use of his power.

He lets us choose how to resolve the fight.  Jesus told us how to resolve the fight if we are prepared to listen.  Essentially – don’t worry about winning the argument – look for the plank in your own eye – think what you could have done better – be humble – turn the other cheek.  It’s not ‘fair’, but it works!  But when we ignore his advice then he’s still there to comfort whoever needs comforting.

Is it time to stop blaming God for all the things we do wrong to each other?  Instead, shall we recognise his love for us, and listen to his advice and find the fulfilment of living our lives as he intended?